On the Cubs

Recalling king of Cub fans: Mike Royko

September 19, 2007|By Paul Sullivan

Former Tribune columnist Mike Royko spent nearly three decades spreading the gospel of the Cubs, becoming the world's leading authority on Cub-related angst.

As much as he loved the Cubs, Royko truly loved telling stories of the futility of rooting for such a hopeless cause, watching each season end in agony and then coming back for more the following spring.

He was partly responsible for the legend of the Billy Goat curse, which was a relatively obscure local story before Royko mentioned it several times in his syndicated columns. Royko also helped spread the word of the ex-Cub factor, a wacky theory of former Chicagoan Ron Berler that any team with three or more ex-Cubs on its roster could not win a World Series.

Royko, who passed away 10 years ago, would have turned 75 Wednesday. His family and friends will be toasting him on this day, as should all Cubs fans who grew up reading Royko's columns on the trials and tribulations of the team.

In April 1968, when the Cubs were coming off a third-place finish and starting to gain some national attention, Royko decried the bandwagon-jumping fans:

"The bookies say the Cubs are contenders for the pennant, so it must be true. And now the city is crawling with Cubs fans. But are they really Cubs fans? Were they around, were they loyal, when everything the Cubs did was disgusting? Were they out there cheering when the only thing to cheer was when the ball came off the screen and hit the batboy in the head?"

I was fortunate enough to have survived two years of working with Royko as his legman, where one of my responsibilities was to get rid of his Cubs tickets during the 1985 season.

The Cubs were coming off the 1984 division-winning season, and Royko had been blamed by some for the postseason collapse in San Diego when he referred to the Padres fans as "wimps." That got the San Diego crowd so riled up at Jack Murphy Stadium they virtually willed the Padres past the Cubs.

But Royko was undaunted and really thought '85 would be the Cubs year.

So he purchased a season-ticket package with the intent on getting postseason tickets in October. Naturally, the entire Cubs pitching staff went down and Royko had little interest in going out to Wrigley to watch a fourth-place team.

On the day of the home opener in '86, my cousin and I devised a way to get me off work to go to the game. I would take a break at a predetermined time, and he would call up my line and get Royko. The only problem was Royko saw right through the ruse.

When my cousin told Royko to tell me to call him because he had an extra ticket for the game, Royko gruffly replied: "Well, I'm his boss, and I happen to know he won't be able to go to the Cubs game today."

It was a story to be told forever at my family functions -- the world's most renowned Cubs fan refusing to let his assistant off to watch a Cubs game.

Whenever Royko was ticked off at me, he would turn up the volume on his office TV while watching the Cubs game, and scream things like "I don't believe it," or "Aww, geez." I would be sitting helplessly at my desk, wondering what was going on.

But he also would spin wonderful stories about old Cubs players like Dim-Dom Dallessandro and Harry Chiti, and about the time he tried to buy the Cubs from William Wrigley, along with Charlie Finley and Marshall Field.

More than 20 years later, I think of Royko every time I walk into Wrigley Field, a place he loved so much his wake was there in 1997.

I wonder what he would think about Carlos Zambrano and Lou Piniella, whose personality is probably as close to Royko's as anyone who has worn a Cubs uniform.

So have a cold one for Mike Royko when you're watching the game tonight. Nothing says Cubs like "Royko."